"The 32 selections in Penzler’s rich compendium of early American mystery stories feature a wide range of criminal activities. Organized chronologically, the volume opens with Washington Irving’s “Story of the Young Robber,” a gripping tale of jealousy, passion, and murder told by an obsessive teenager who joins a band of kidnappers that targets his ex-lover. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Mr. Higgenbotham’s Catastrophe,” Dominicus Pike, a gossipy tobacco seller, meets a stranger in the woods and hears of the death of a noted businessman under “ambiguous circumstances.” Abraham Lincoln’s “Remarkable Case of Arrest for Murder,” a true crime account first published in 1846, tells of three sinister brothers whom he defended in an unsolved “strange affair” in Illinois. Poe is represented with his groundbreaking “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter,” which introduced C. Auguste Dupin, the “first eccentric genius detective.” Readers will also savor works by such luminaries as Daniel Webster, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, and Jack London, as well as by a number of forgotten, if no less deserving, names. Penzler (
Kwik Krimes and more than 50 other anthologies) draws on his vast knowledge of the genre for his cogent introduction and commentary on individual entries."--Publishers Weekly, STARRED "From Penzler, editor of “The Best American Mystery Stories” series, comes a new anthology of 19th-century American mystery fiction. Classics by Edgar Allan Poe and Anna Katharine Green are presented alongside lesser-known works by well-known authors, including Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, L. Frank Baum, and Jack London, as well as several forgotten contributors to the genre. There’s a gem of a story by African American author Charles W. Chesnutt and a legal clunker by Abraham Lincoln that will make you grateful he didn’t quit his day job. Penzler heralds each story with a brief introduction to the author and a description of the work’s significance to the genre. VERDICT Penzler’s latest collection is the literary equivalent of a B-movie marathon. A guaranteed satisfying read for die-hard classical mystery enthusiasts and lovers of literary Americana, if not for everyone else."--Library Journal
"The 32 selections in Penzler’s rich compendium of early American mystery stories feature a wide range of criminal activities. Organized chronologically, the volume opens with Washington Irving’s “Story of the Young Robber,” a gripping tale of jealousy, passion, and murder told by an obsessive teenager who joins a band of kidnappers that targets his ex-lover. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Mr. Higgenbotham’s Catastrophe,” Dominicus Pike, a gossipy tobacco seller, meets a stranger in the woods and hears of the death of a noted businessman under “ambiguous circumstances.” Abraham Lincoln’s “Remarkable Case of Arrest for Murder,” a true crime account first published in 1846, tells of three sinister brothers whom he defended in an unsolved “strange affair” in Illinois. Poe is represented with his groundbreaking “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter,” which introduced C. Auguste Dupin, the “first eccentric genius detective.” Readers will also savor works by such luminaries as Daniel Webster, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, and Jack London, as well as by a number of forgotten, if no less deserving, names. Penzler (
Kwik Krimes and more than 50 other anthologies) draws on his vast knowledge of the genre for his cogent introduction and commentary on individual entries."--Publishers Weekly, STARRED
For The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century: "[A] cornerstone volume for any mystery library."—
Publishers Weekly "[This] book offers pleasures aplenty."—
New York Times For The Best American Noir of the Century:
"Impressive crime anthology...All the contributors excel at showing the omnipresence of the dark side of humanity in many different times and locales."--
Publishers Weekly, STARRED review
For The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century:
"[A] cornerstone volume for any mystery library."—
Publishers Weekly "[This] book offers pleasures aplenty."—
New York Times For The Best American Noir of the Century:
"Impressive crime anthology...All the contributors excel at showing the omnipresence of the dark side of humanity in many different times and locales."--
Publishers Weekly, STARRED review
"Everything about The Best American Noir of the Century oozes class, and not just from the authors and editors. The publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is to be commended for pulling out all the stops and not skimping on the costs on this edition, giving us a beautifully designed book with a translucent cover. Once the cover is removed, it reveals a classic noir scene of bloody interrogation being noted by an observing scribe. Well worth its impressive weight in gold, it would be a crime not to have this seminal masterpiece in your collection."—Sam Millar for the
New York Journal of Books
OTTO PENZLER is a renowned mystery editor, publisher, columnist, and founder of New York’s Mysterious Bookshop, the oldest and largest bookstore solely dedicated to mystery fiction. He has edited more than fifty crime-fiction anthologies.